Transcript For and against

For and Against
• An Autopsy was carried out on a
supposedly alien life form.
• There are lots of reasons for and
against this being a real alien…
• Ed Uthman explained what he
thought…
Evidence Against
• 1. I agree with the cinematographer whose suspicion was raised
when the close-up shots were out of focus. Clearly the camera
could focus closely, as in the external shots and shots of the
excised "organs" on the table, but where you really needed
resolution to figure out the anatomy (the in situ shots), the film
was conveniently fuzzy.
• 2. Any pathologist involved in such a case would be obsessed
with documenting the findings. He would be systematically
demonstrating findings every step of the way, such as showing
how the joints worked, whether the eyelids closed, etc. He
should be ordering the cameraman all over the place, but
instead the cameraman was totally ignored, like he wasn't there
at all. The pathologist acted more like an actor in front of a
camera than someone who was cooperating in a photographic
documentation session.
More evidence
• 3. The prosector used scissors like a tailor, not like a pathologist
or surgeon. He held the scissors with thumb and forefinger,
whereas pathologists and surgeons put the thumb in one
scissors hole and the middle or ring finger in the other. The
forefinger is used to steady the scissors further up toward the
blades.
• 4. The way the initial cuts in the skin were made a little too
Hollywood-like, too gingerly, like operating on a living patient.
Autopsy cuts are deeper and faster.
• 5. I would expect the skin of a species with a jointed
endoskeleton to be elastic, so it could move with and glide over
moving joints. When cuts were made in the "alien's" skin, the
edges of the skin did not retract from the blade.
Even More Evidence
• 6. The most implausible thing of all is that the "alien" just had
amorphous lumps of tissue in "her" body cavities. I cannot
fathom that an alien who had external organs so much like ours
could not have some sort of definitive structural organs
internally. And again, the prosectors did not make any attempt
to arrange the organs for demonstration to the camera.
• 7. This of course is outside my area of expertise, but the whole
production just did not "look right" for a military documentary of
the 1940's. I'm sure an expert in lighting, cinematography, etc.
could be a bit more specific. Maybe they should have hired the
guy who did Woody Allen's Zelig to give the production a little
more technical verisimilitude.
And just to prove it...
• 8. And the "period pieces," the wall phone and electric wall
clock were just a little too glib, IMHO.
• 9. Oh, yeah. The body was not propped up on a body block
(which goes under the back during the examination of the trunk
and under the head for removal of the brain). This is a very
basic piece of autopsy equipment, and all pathologists use it.
• So, I think it was a really fine effort, worthy even of a Cal Tech
prank, but not quite good enough to be believable.
But then again...
• On the other hand, perhaps life doesn't need random chemical
reactions to get started as much as we think. Maybe the
chemical reactions life are based on are inevitable, given a
planet such as the Earth to work with. A few decades ago we
discovered in experiments that when we recreate the conditions
of Earth (as much as possible) as it was in its early pre-life
years, the formation of amino acids and some other organic
molecules are inevitable and in abundance. Amino acids are the
building blocks of proteins, an important part of the machinery
of life. This discovery and many others are making the genesis
of life seem more and more likely. Perhaps, partial strands of
DNA had a quasi-life function before the creation of the
"Genesis DNA".